With rapid advance of multimedia and Internet technologies, the power required by personal computers also increases significantly, especially for CPU, motherboard and graphic adapter card. For users who frequently play online games, the operation power of the personal computer has to be more than 600 W to meet requirements. Once the equipment of the personal computer is upgraded, the original power supply also has to be upgraded. Namely, the original power supply with insufficient power has to be replaced and discarded. However, in terms of the power supply specification, even if the upgraded speed of the personal computer is faster, the power specification and the size and installation location of the power supply on the personal computer are still compatible. To throw away the power supply merely because of insufficient power is a waste of resources. Moreover, recycling of the power supply is quite difficult. It also creates environmental pollution problem.
In industrial computers, using multiple sets of power supply to provide power is a common practice. In practice, the usual approach includes a backup power supply. For instance, for a power supply of 500 W that includes two sets configured in a 1+1 fashion, with the actual power requirement of 500 W, each of the two sets of power supply provides 250 W. As the industrial computer mainly aims to function as a server and must be maintained in an operating condition constantly, if one set of the power supply is damaged, another set has to be enhanced to support the maximum load and still maintain the normal operating condition. But for personal computers, they are not normally being maintained in the operating condition. If multiple sets of power supply are procured, there is no extra space for installation. Moreover, most personal computers have machine stop time longer than operation time. At present the concept of green environmental protection is widely aware, reducing power consumption at machine stop time is an important issue to be addressed. The existing design model of the industrial computer cannot be directly transferred to the personal computer.